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November might mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I think we can all agree that it mostly screams out, “Fall sports Ivy championship hunt crunch time!!!!” Am I right or what? While you kick back and pat yourself on the back for getting through those midterms mostly alive, athletic Brunonians are out fighting for those elusive Ivy League titles. Let’s see how they’re doing.

[Update: Football, men’s soccer, and volleyball were all eliminated from championship contention over the weekend.]

Football: While Sunday NFL Countdown host Chris Berman ’77 may have predicted big things, football’s Ivy chances took a big hit when it opened its conference schedule with decisive losses to Harvard and Princeton. Wins over Cornell and, this past weekend, Ivy-leading Penn have snuck Brown kind of back into the picture, but da Bears still need to win out against Yale, Dartmouth, and Columbia, then hope Princeton, Penn, and Harvard choke real hard. Championship chances: 5%

Last weekend, I went to the Brown Equestrian (BEQ) team’s home show. After three wrong turns and an excursion through Massachusetts (I don’t understand New England), we made it to Windswept Farm, BEQ’s barn in Warren, RI. My first thought upon seeing the horses was that these 1500 pound beasts are nothing like my understanding of horse-creatures from Robot Unicorn Attack. They all were twice as tall as me, had big pieces of metal in their mouths, and looked like they wanted to bite my head off. But then my friend on the team introduced me to a horse named Momma, who seemed really sweet and calm and almost transformed me into a horse person, until I learned she was narcoleptic and was actually just falling asleep. This doesn’t seem safe when she’s about to be carrying someone on her back at 20 mph… I took some selfies with the sleepy horse and then went to watch the show. Continue Reading

This weekend, the Brown football team had its first big test in its Ivy Opener at Harvard. Yes, we know that we covered football last weekend, but I wanted an excuse to go to Cambridge for a day but knew this was an especially important game to write about. After walking around the kind-of-city, I sat down in Harvard Square and enjoyed a pretty good piece of pizza (Nice Slice is still better). I also got a chance to check out the campus, but unfortunately I kept getting swept up by the thousands of elderly tourists who would stop and take pictures at every possible moment. So let’s just get to the game.

Things got started at around 5 p.m., and even though we were at Harvard (boo), it seemed like it would be a good game. Surprisingly, a large population of Brown students had come down for the night, and the tailgate was well-attended. After playing cornhole for two hours, we all headed down to the stadium.

Brown got off to a solid start—we scored the first two touchdowns of the game. There was also a successful onside kick that gave the Bears more momentum. At the end of the first quarter, the score was 13-0 Bears, and it seemed like things would be going our way. That is, until the second quarter started. Our lead evaporated when the Crimson scored 4 unanswered touchdowns. Our momentary glimmer of hope faded away and unfortunately, we were never able to come back. At halftime, the score was 28-13 Harvard. We only scored one more touchdown, in the third quarter, and the game ended 41-23 Harvard. Continue Reading

It’s that time of year again: tailgating season. The smell of propane is in the air, crushed beer cans litter parking lots, and fans all across the country eat an ungodly amount of queso dip. This is essentially every American’s dream: violence, alcohol, and sodium. When I made the trek down to the Brown football stadium this Saturday, I had high expectations and I was ready to get my tailgate on. It was the home-opener, the first 1,000 students would get free t-shirts, and it was a beautiful day, so we were bound to get a good turnout, right??? Sort of.

Calling the activities outside of the stadium a “tailgate” is a slight exaggeration. Most of the people mingling in the parking lot beforehand were members of the classes of 1940 through 1950. Something told me that none of them were looking to shotgun a Natty before heading inside. The AARP meeting “tailgate” was a bust, and even though I consumed zero nachos and zero hotdogs, I was unfazed because I still was getting my free t-shirt (#gobruno). Continue Reading

As we come to the end of another glorious season of Brown Athletics, it’s important to take a second to sit back and think about all the wonderful moments we’ve spent watching Brown teams succeed on and off the field this year. Let’s dash through season recaps for every one of our 37 varsity sports:

Baseball: A 7-33 finish, including 3-17 in Ivy League play, marks a successful and unprecedented effort by the baseball team to win even fewer games than last year’s nine. They did push #2 LSU to the wire in a narrow 4-3 walk-off loss, though, so that’s something.

Basketball (Men’s): A 7-7 Ivy League record was a big improvement on last year and good for a tie for third. Memorable wins included a comeback over rival Providence and eliminating Princeton from league title contention with a beatdown in the season finale. Sean McGonagill ’14 was named first-team All-Ivy; Cedric Kuakumensah ’16 was name Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year. Show the fuck up to their games next year, please.

Basketball (Women’s): 3-11 Ivy and 9-19 overall records were nothing to write home about, but women’s basketball alum Lindsey Gottlieb ’99 coached Cal to the Women’s Final Four, which is pretty damn cool.

Crew (Men’s): Hard to figure out, since apparently men’s rowing isn’t an NCAA sport but is still varsity (?). I don’t know. Anyway, Brown has had another great season, losing only to No. 1 Washington and Ivy rival Harvard. (I think. Crew results are really hard to understand.) The year will conclude with Ivy and National championships in late May/early June.

Crew (Women’s): The NCAA sponsors women’s rowing, so this one is easier to figure out. Brown is ranked 12th and fresh off an Eastern Sprints victory heading into Ivy and National championships in late May/early June. Sounds promising.

Cross Country (Men’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, but didn’t qualify for nationals after finishing 11th at Northeast Regionals.

Cross Country (Women’s): A bunch of Brown students ran distances that would kill you or me, and finished 8th at Northeast Regionals. Standout Margaret Connelly ’14 placed 7th to qualify for Nationals, where she finished 130th out of 253 runners.

Equestrian: The team placed third at Ivies and sent three riders to Nationals. Honestly, the results of this shit are totally indecipherable, but I can report with some certainty that no one from Brown won the national championship. Still, it sounds like they did pretty well.